


I Know You

by Lautari



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Childhood Friends, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lautari/pseuds/Lautari
Summary: Small, missing scenes for the new canon highlighting the relationships of the characters, while mixing in characters and plots from Legends. The loss of childhood and the family and friends that shape it are dominating themes.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Poe Dameron & Leia Organa
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	1. Dusty Robes

**Author's Note:**

> These moments were written after TFA was released. There were nuanced moments that I thought the movie lacked and at the time was hopeful that it was because it was out of fear it would create spoilers. I didn't really like TFA but...was still hopeful. The sequel trilogy didn't turn out as I hoped and the EU will always be my canon, but there were characters that I couldn't help create backstory for and I also couldn't fight the urge to marry some parts of the EU and Disney canon together.

He'd known who she was the moment he pulled her up from the bowels of the _Falcon_.

Living in relative isolation on Jakku, her aristocratic Core accent was undiluted. He'd teased the kid relentlessly when the little girl started sounding out her syllables with her mother's lilt. _"The little princess isn't from Tatooine that's for sure."_

But when she finally straightened and stood before him in those dusty robes, his heart fell a little. _It's Luke._ His brother in law had disappeared years ago, the last memory Han had of his dear friend marred in the shadows of the Coruscanti night while he stood in their home, shaking and grief-stricken. _"They're gone," he'd whispered. "Everything. Everyone."_

Han had known it was Ben. He'd seen his son transform from a happy little boy to a scowling youth. Leia and Han had been good parents, devoted even, though somewhat distracted in the New Republic's formative years. Never absent though. But the tumultuous relationship between his parents affected Ben greatly. At fifteen, even without the Force, Han knew that the darkness in Ben's eyes was not teenage sulkiness.

00000

_Leia was the first to move, a shaking hand reaching out to her brother's arm, but Luke couldn't bare her touch, let alone meet her gaze. "I'm sorry," was all he said._

_Trying to take stock of the situation and pull close everyone he had left at that point, Han asked, "Where's Mara?"_

" _She's gone."_

_Leia stiffened in shock as her brother turned to leave. Artoo chittered on his heels but Luke placed a hand on the droid's dome. "You stay here." Leia thought she heard him add in a whisper, "Keep it safe," but perhaps she misheard._

_Han surveyed the room for the little figure that was her father's ever present shadow. "And…?"_

_Luke paused before pulling his hood up. "She's gone, too."_

00000

Han pulled away from old memories and studied her as he approached her on Takodana. He had studied her in the cockpit as well, too afraid to ask her name. She raised her face to the sunlight, taking in all the flora _. "I've never seen so much green,"_ she'd said.

But she had. In another life, she'd reveled in the lush green of Yavin 4, running after Ben and the Dameron boy, who'd been tasked with keeping a watchful eye on her while their parents visited as friends and former comrades. She had splashed in the bountiful turquoise oceans of her mother's home world, Iyree, with her father, who would never grow tired of having enough bath water, let alone a vast ocean to swim in.

Swallowing, he finally gathered the nerve to ask, "You got a name?"

She smiled and nervously handled the blaster he'd given her. "Rey."

"Rey," he repeated. A faint smile crossed his face though her omission cut him. She had been Rey since ten year old Ben had crept up to her cradle and peered in at her and called her by it. Luke had named her with Han's permission after informing the smuggler of his and Mara's choice while the two were rewiring the mapping system on the _Falcon_.

00000

" _Wh – why would you want to name her that?"_

_Luke tapped his wrench against the palm of his mechanical hand and leaned against the console. "We want the kids to have good, solid names, right?"_

" _But you could name her anything, kid." Han ducked back underneath the console. "Her grandmother was kind of a big deal."_

_Luke smiled. He and Leia had fit the final pieces of the parentage together recently when Lor San Tekka had approached them with holodocs and vids from the late Republican era that he thought they would find of interest. Leia had stopped on a Senate committee portrait and traced the outline of the young woman seated on her Bail Organa's right. "That's her," she'd whispered, pulling from her memory. "That's our mother."_

" _We never knew our mother," Luke said a little wistfully. "We want to honor those we knew, who were flesh and blood to us. Loved." He scratched his head, grinning. "She was going to be Owen, but Mara won that bet." He sobered. "Besides, she's probably going to be the only girl."_

_Han slid out from under the cramped work space. He and Leia had accepted in recent years that Ben would be their only child. He nodded. "Well, Freya is a good Corellian name." He fiddled with the greasy towel in his hands, remembering his younger sister whom he had lost so many years ago. "Thank you."_

He'd meant it when he'd told Finn they wouldn't leave without her. Luke had lost a hand because he refused to leave them to his father's mercy. Han would be damned if he left Luke's daughter to his son's.


	2. Broken Down Cockpit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew who he was the moment he crouched in front of him.

He had known who he was the moment he had crouched in front of him.

Even with the mask, the cocky swagger and arrogant way he balanced on the balls of his feet while studying his prey gave him away. He was a Solo. There was no trace of the excited young boy who'd always managed to best him in hand to hand combat though.

Poe raised an eyebrow. "So who talks first? You talk first, I talk first?"

They both knew the game.

"The old man gave it to you."

Poe bristled at _old man,_ as if his childhood friend hadn't just struck down a man he'd known his entire life. "It's just very hard to understand you with all that –"

"Search him."

"-apparatus."

_Take off that mask. I know who you are._

00000

" _I got you!" the ten year old shrieked, pumping his fist in the air. He twirled the stick he had used to land a victorious jab through his fingers deftly. He crouched down, grinning, but then frowned. "You okay?"_

_Poe wheezed but pushed the younger boy backwards, playfully. "Fine. That's two I owe you." He took off up the rope ladder hanging from the old Masai tree he'd claimed as his fort._

_The grin quickly returned to Ben's face and he scampered after him. "Maybe if you spent less time in that old broken down cockpit you'd be able handle a kali better," he called_

_Poe grinned at the goading. The X-wing was a skeleton, a parted out piece of scrap left behind during the Rebellion's hasty departure from the planet, but all he'd needed was controls. "If I'm going to be the best pilot in the fleet, I could care less about kali. A couple of years I'm going to be in real cockpit."_

_Ben scowled, like he did every time Poe talked about heading for the Academy as soon as he turned 16. "I don't want you to go."_

" _It's another three years, bud. Besides, you're already training with your uncle. And you've got Freya now. She'll be right next to you before you know it."_

_Ben scowled even more. "She cries a lot."_

_Poe grinned. He knew Ben adored his new cousin, but was jealous about the upheaval the baby had brought upon the Solo and Skywalker households. "That won't last forever."_

_The boy shrugged. "She's okay I guess. Pretty."_

_She was. Poe thought she was the prettiest little creature in the galaxy, not that he'd seen too many babies. Her eyelashes dusted her cheeks while she slept and her little lips formed a little "o" when she gazed at the world around her. The first time he'd held her, their dark eyes stared into each other and she'd grinned and hooked her finger on his lip._

" _She likes you," her mother teased._

_The spell was broken and the he'd blushed, passing her back sheepishly._

00000

"I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board."

It was an acknowledgement that he recognized the young officer, but he just didn't care. Still, it was an acknowledgement.

"Comfortable?"

Poe winced. "Not really."

"I'm impressed. No one has been able to get out of you what you did with the map."

There was anger, frustration, but Poe still felt no fear _. I know who you are._ If he had been anyone else…..but he wasn't. And the other man hadn't wanted to lay a hand on him. Yet."You might want to rethink your technique."

As far as his old friend had fallen, he was still shocked when his mind was laid open by the Force and old memories thrown aside haphazardly.

"Where is it?"

"The Resistance will not be intimidated by you," Poe gasped, fighting back.

Another _push_. "Where….. _is it_?"

It sounded like begging. But it had always been a battle of wills between them.

00000

_Poe punched Ben in the arm. "I'll see you soon."_

_Ben tried to smile._

" _You're not getting left behind, bud." Poe nodded up the ramp for the cadet shuttle. "A couple of years, you'll be there. I'm getting the place ready for you."_

_Ben nodded. "I know." He shook his long black hair out of his eyes. "Try not to get your ass kicked."_

_Poe grinned. Suddenly, he felt homesick. For all the dreaming about this moment for years, he knew that tonight in his dorm, on the busy Coruscant surface, he was going to miss the muggy calm of Yavin. "Now I don't want to leave," he admitted. "You pulling some Jedi mind crap on me?"_

_It was teasing, but Ben frowned indignantly. "I would never use the Force on you."_

_Poe pulled him in for a hug. He clapped his back. "I know. Stay out of trouble, kid."_


	3. That Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She stiffened and Poe looked away. He was too good natured to make jabs, they didn’t come easily to him, but he was hurt and tired and blindsided. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

The private had no sooner murmured “Dameron” and “arrived” before Leia was halfway up the steps into the sunlight. After the young pilot failed to make contact for two days she knew something had happened to the pilot or he was deliberately initiating radio silence. Either way, the mission hadn’t gone well and she was worried…and responsible.

Poe was one of the older children, one of the first born to their generation. While she and the others had been born in the waning days of the Republic or the young shadow of the Empire, they hoped their children, born in the dawn of the New Republic, would have a different path. She knew Kes and Shara had wanted that for their son. He’d gone to the Academy as soon as possible to train for a career in the Republic fleet. Only a few short years later, when the threat of the First Order was realized and unheeded, Leia personally tapped him for the black ops Resistance force. Honestly, it hadn’t been a hard a choice for him to make. Now he was 33 and the real fight was just beginning for him. He looked haggard, dragging his feet, only managing a weak smile when a squadron mate clapped his back in passing. It was an unguarded moment that gave her a glimpse of the nine year old boy he’d once been, who’d just lost his mother.

He saw her, and his shoulders slumped, defeated. He tried to brush past her, but she grasped his arm at the elbow. “BB-8 has the map, I’ve already got someone working on pinpointing his signal,” he reported, sullenly. “Lor San Tekka is dead.”

She stiffened and Poe looked away. He was too good natured to make jabs, they didn’t come easily to him, but he was hurt and tired and blindsided. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She dropped her hand like he’d burned her. “You saw him?”

“I didn’t have to,” he muttered walking away. “I know him.”

00000

“Hello, Poe.”

The boy started, but pretended he didn’t hear. He continued brushing off the log he was preparing for Ben and himself to sit on. She had followed them quietly after Han allowed Ben to slide off his lap and grab the Dameron boy’s outstretched hand. Poe was usually a whirling dervish, but the subdued mood was heavier than the Yavin air, and he’d spent the day avoiding everyone. “Here you go, Ben,” Poe grunted pulling the younger boy up beside him. “This is good and sturdy.”

Leia smiled at the two. They could pass as brothers with their dark looks, though Ben had inherited his father’s more distinct Corellian features. Poe’s hair was thick and unruly where Ben’s was soft and fine, and she felt the maternal urge to run a hand through the mop of curls in an effort to tame them. She crouched in front of the boys instead. “Do you know who I am? I’m – “

“I know you,” Poe interrupted, eyeing her, but without her son’s suspicious nature. “You’re that princess.” He said it as if he didn’t understand what the big deal was.

Leia laughed and looked back at Han who was watching the exchange curiously while still taking part in the conversation with Shara’s old squadron mates. Kes stood to the side with Luke, watching his son as well. “Yeah, I guess I am that princess. I like being Ben’s mommy best though.”

Ben looked up from where he was peeling the bark and smiled at her. She put a hand on Poe’s little knee cap. He had been in his own little world since Shara passed, refusing to acknowledge the upheaval around him. He’d orbited Leia and Ben quietly since their arrival though, running up to Ben at the ramp and enveloping him in a hug that lifted the toddler off his feet. _“Don’t worry,” he said to Threepio when the protocol droid began fussing. “I know him.”_

Poe’s lip quivered at her touch and she squeezed his knee. “I remember when you were born.”

He frowned. “You do?”

She nodded. He was born on a cruiser during a lull in the fighting while the Alliance fleet found respite in the Chad system in the Outer Rim. Their small group had celebrated quietly at his early delivery, and even Han, at that time still adamant about his temporary status, found enough joy in the occasion to break open a box of confiscated Corellian brandy. They’d all reached the age where they were beginning to wonder if it was allowed to hope for something beyond the Alliance bases, to want what they were fighting for. Many would be lifers, committed to the cause and continuing solitary lifestyles even after transitioning to the New Republic fleet. But, others, as life naturally went, were quick to follow Shara and Kes. After Ben’s birth, Han continuously asked Luke when he was going to enter the fray, to which her brother blushed and shook his head. “We need a girl to round out the ranks,” Han insisted. In truth, Wedge had two girls, one older and younger than Ben, but he had slipped quietly back to Corellia recently and Han just liked picking at his best friend while the old crew roared with laughter.

“You made everyone incredibly happy. You look like your mama, you know that?”

“Do you look like your mama?”

Leia was startled by the question but chewed it over for a moment before nodding slowly. “Yes,” she said drawing from the ghost of a memory. “I like to think I do. She passed when I was little. But I like to think that a part of her lives in me, just as your mother lives on in you. No one is ever really gone.”

“But she isn’t here.”

“No, not completely.” She lifted Poe’s chin. “But the best part of her is. And that’s you.”

The boy was still clutching Ben’s hand tightly, but her son didn’t mind. He let Poe use him as a lifeline while he continued to chip at the bark, oblivious to the conversation. “Hey, Ben!” Han called. The toddler’s head shot up and Han waved a juice box. “Oooh,” he gasped, sliding his rump off the log. Poe held tight until his feet touched the ground and Leia saw the ghost of a much older man in the face of boy too old, too fast. He shouldered it well though. Ben took off back to the group as fast as his legs could carry him towards his prize, and Poe slid to his feet as well, offering his hand. “I’ll walk back with you.”

Leia couldn’t help but grin and stood. “Lead the way.”


	4. Stacking The Losses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you heard from anyone?” Poe asked softly. He was desperate for good news-any ships, any old friends from his Academy and childhood days, holding out hope that some had survived

Poe was tempted to duck to avoid the former general, especially given the recent revelations, but Han saw him, and his step faltered. Apparently, Poe opened old wounds as easily as Han did. The smuggler regained his composure and gave him a crooked grin. “I know you.”

Poe nodded. “Sir.”

“Spare me. Han.”

“Han.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see you throw your lot in with this bunch.”

“The princess has ways of making you see things her way.”

Han laughed. “Don’t let her hear you say that, but…yes, she does.” The nostalgia faded and his eye grew serious. “I’m glad you weren’t with the Republic fleet. I guess a sign of growing old is immediately thinking of parents when something happens. For your dad to lose you…”

He trailed off, perhaps straying a bit too close to home. “Have you heard from anyone?” Poe asked softly. He was desperate for good news-any ships, any old friends from his Academy and childhood days, holding out hope that some had survived. There was a change in the mood around the base. While the Republic was still in place there was hope that things could turn around, that the Resistance could be the buffer to protect galactic democracy, until the Republic could see the true threats and the First Order could be wiped out. Now, as so many years before, they were the remnant.

Han shook his head. “I was able to raise Wedge,” he said, referring to the fellow Corellian and one of his and Luke’s oldest friends. “Syal is missing.”

Poe swallowed the lump in his throat thinking of Wedge’s blonde daughter, a few years out of the Academy, who’d followed her father’s footsteps into Rogue Squadron. “I heard from Jysella,” he whispered. “Valin was planet side. Didn’t even have time to get his fighter off the ground.”

Han’s face blanched and Poe knew what he was thinking. Their father, Corran Horn had been a pilot with Rogue Squadron before agreeing to train at Luke’s academy. He’d been lost when the Knights of Ren had leveled the place, struck down by the son of old friends. To have one of his children lost now, other children lost, to an evil they thought they’d stomped out, was a bitter pill to swallow. “I guess there won’t be any question about Booster straddling the line from here on out.”

 _Had Ben known_? Poe wondered. Had he known when he started down his destructive path, he would be indirectly responsible for the deaths of individuals he’d once played with? For years, he counted Ben among the lost, his grief and seeing Leia’s grief acting as the main driving force behind his allegiance to the Resistance.

_“We have to do something,” Leia told him. “Snoke took my son. He took my niece. I cannot let him take anyone else. No one else should lose their children.”_

And now… they were stacking up their losses. Comrades were trying to find loved ones, military channels were static as officers tried to contact any ground or naval forces. All efforts were being met by resounding silence. In a few days, contact would start trickling in, messages from those forced to ground and scattered. But it would be little, and not enough against the force they now faced.


	5. Let Them Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d loved his father. He’d loved the girl in the rags, their bond one he’d missed. He hated her too; hated her calm focus, her effortless mastery that he always clawed for.

Kylo let his wounds burn.

He wanted them to fuel his rage and purpose and justify his actions. But if he were being honest, he also wanted them to burn as punishment. The part of his soul that still answered to Ben when his father called to him, whispered he had gone past all return within a matter of days, and that severed cord dangled painfully. Tears pricked his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He cut his father down and was still shocked when Chewie shot him with his crossbow. The Wookie still hadn’t been able to land a kill shot though, the blow more like a rebuke. _“You know me!” He’d wanted to scream. “You helped raise me!”_

Poe had nearly been his undoing. He should’ve ripped the information from the pilot’s head there on Jakku while he stood frozen and then let his body burn with the others. But Poe’s rage over Lor San Tekka and his horror at the realization over who Kylo was only provoked him. The kriffing fool had the nerve to run his mouth while in an interrogation chamber because of his memory of who the fallen Jedi had once been, and that fearlessness had at once incensed him and stirred something inside him…

Ben. He was clamoring to the surface.

He squeezed his eyes shut. _Why couldn’t you have stayed away?_

All of them. Poe, his father, _her._

Rage welled inside him again; at what he had to do to his father, at the sight of the girl on the catwalk. His past was haunting him. Conflicting emotions crashed against each other. Why couldn’t they have just stayed away?

He’d loved his father. He’d loved the girl in the rags, their bond one he’d missed. He hated her too; hated her calm focus, her effortless mastery that he always clawed for. They were both equals in the Force, but her serenity allowed her to tap into her talents in a way that Kylo hadn’t under his uncle’s tutelage. Whether it was Luke’s attention to her, or Kylo’s own internal conflicts, he hit walls, his strength only coming forth when he finally submitted to Snoke. He knew he was being used. Snoke didn’t want him mastering too much, keeping him emotional, but his time was coming.

 _“They will never let you become who you are meant to be_ ,” Mara warned him years ago, through clenched teeth, after he’d stabbed her in the thigh with poison during their duel in that cave system in the Hapes Cluster. He already knew that, and his plans far surpassed Snoke. _“You’ll be on a leash.”_

 _“I’m sorry,”_ he said, kneeling next to her. He truly was. He was close to his aunt, finding a kindred spirit in her as he grew. But she was always a vicious fighter. They’d struck a deal in the midst of the burning wreckage of the Jedi Academy. He and the Knights had pursued her and her daughter into the mountains before dragging them back as the only way to control Luke Skywalker. The Master had emerged from the rubble and for the first time in his life, Kylo held a blade to another person’s throat with the Knights at his back.

Let him go, Mara had asked. For now, let him go. Spare the girl, and she would go with him. He’d allowed it, knowing the time would come when his skills would match his uncle’s, but it wasn’t then. He also knew that Mara and the girl would provide him with the only leverage he could wield against Luke. So his uncle had watched, unwillingly, as the transport with his wife and child rose and left. But, as usual, the Skywalkers had prepared for this. Mara knew where Luke would go, and she had a vast knowledge of the Unknown Regions due to her youth spent in the Emperor’s Court, but he knew when they left her daughter on Jakku she had no intention of taking him to the Skywalker rendezvous point. She would never betray Luke. She also knew that Kylo would never harm her child; so she asked to leave the girl in relative safety on desolate world, and then led him to the Hapes Cluster and attacked him in the caves, nearly killing him in his inexperience before he’d poisoned her. _“Luke will stop you,”_ she hissed defiantly, watching him stand and walk away, leaving her to die alone in darkness.

Now, he could not let the girl escape. He’d done what he could, trying to spare her. He let her be abandoned on Jakku to keep her safe, but Mara had made sure to leave a trail, a connection to her father in the hands of Lor San Tekka. He should’ve taken care of the old fool years ago. The girl had been told years ago they’d be back for her, before he mind rubbed her. He’d left that memory, allowing that comfort, to keep her sane and on Jakku, waiting. It was a desolate planet with nowhere to disappear to. She’d be right there where she’d been left.

And yet, she stood before him on Takodana all those years later, little Freya, with Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber on her belt as if claiming some birthright. The last time he’d seen it had been in her mother’s fist, given to her by Luke Skywalker as a gift before Rey was born. He’d accepted the slash across his face during their duel in the woods on the base. It felt like retribution. He still bore the scars across his body that her mother inflicted, and now every time he looked at the wound in the mirror, he could hear Mara’s ghost whisper, _“I told you so.”_

It burned. Moreso than his wounds, the knowledge that at this moment, as he sat alone, Rey was reuniting with his mother, Poe…and other faces he longed for. That was the sacrifice, wasn’t it? Not just the death of his father, but the gulf it created that could never be spanned again. He no longer belonged with them, no longer knew them. That was the price of power.


	6. Back of My Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He remembered her. She’d hugged his leg the last time he saw her in the Solo apartments on Coruscant. Leia was on planet for meetings and Ben had tagged along with her to see him. Luke and Mara were visiting as well and Rey’s eyes had lit up when she saw Poe enter the apartments, Artoo tootling on her heels.

Rey watched Poe help Leia lower into a seat and squeeze her hand before brushing past her headed towards the cockpit. Frowning, she followed. “You seem to know your way around.”

He smirked back over his shoulder. “I know this ship like the back of my hand.” He plopped down in the pilot’s seat and Rey was about to object before Chewie sauntered in and claimed his spot in the co-pilot seat, not giving the fighter pilot any mind. Poe patted the console. “You know me, baby.” He motioned to the back. “Go see to Leia. I’ve got this.”

Later, in the quiet of hyperspace, he draped a blanket across her shoulders in the rec booth. “You should get some sleep.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can ever sleep again.”

“I know you’ve lost a lot in the past few days.”

“So has everyone else.” She slumped. “I feel so empty. And I don’t know why.”

 _“Don’t say a word to her,”_ Leia whispered when he helped her sit. He remembered the girl briefly from the aftermath of the battle of Starkiller base, but the past few days had afforded little time to peel back the layer of years. Now, he studied her, after their introduction in the corridor.

_“I’m Poe.”_

_No recognition lit her face, but her dimples were still on display when she smiled. “I’m Rey.”_

_“I know.”_

And he did. He remembered her. She’d hugged his leg the last time he saw her in the Solo apartments on Coruscant. Leia was on planet for meetings and Ben had tagged along with her to see him. Luke and Mara were visiting as well and Rey’s eyes had lit up when she saw Poe enter the apartments, Artoo tootling on her heels.

_He’d swung her up and held her against his hip. “Do I know you?”_

_She giggled and hugged his neck._

_“We’re going out,” Ben called back to his mother in the recesses of the apartment, pulling on his boots._

_“Can I come?” Rey pouted._

_“No,” Ben groused, as if they’d already had the argument. The two argued like siblings, and Rey stuck her tongue out. Poe chuckled and set her down._

_“That’s enough Rey,” Mara scolded, holding out her hand. “Leave the boys to it. They’ll be back later.”_

_Rey still huffed and hid her face in Poe’s calf. Surprisingly, Ben bent over and whispered in her ear. “I’ll bring you back a dessert from Dex’s.”_

_“Make it chocolate,” her father called from the kitchen, no doubt hoping for a few bites of his own._

_The little girl allowed herself to be peeled off Poe and handed to her mother. Mara brushed her dark hair, so different from her own, and stroked Rey’s cheek with the back of her hand and grinned. “You boys don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”_

It was the last time Poe saw Mara and Rey. Now he studied Rey, finding small traces of her mother and father in her face. _“She looked like my grandmother,” Leia mused once, soon after suffering the terrible loss of her son and her brother’s family. “If we’d ever had a little girl, I always thought she would look like her.”_

Poe lowered himself onto the bench next to her. “It won’t always feel like this.” It would feel worse. If she ever remembered who she was and the life that was stolen from her, the grief would be crushing. He knew because he was drowning in it. He rubbed the still tender burn on his shoulder from his interrogation session on Starkiller. “You still have family,” he said. “Everyone here has lost something. Maybe everything.” He nodded toward Leia, asleep against Chewie. “Give her a chance.”

Rey raised an eyebrow. “You hold her in high regard.”

“She’s like a mother to me.”

“You seem to have a story or two.”

“You too.”

She shook her head. “I’m nobody. Tell me about yourself.”

Poe scratched his head. “Well, uh, I grew up on Yavin…”


	7. Smoke Filled Nostrils

Luke watched the girl move seamlessly through exercises, muscle memory taking over and years falling away. She’d only been a young girl when she began training with a blade, but she’d inherited her mother’s lithe grace and her father’s skill. Chewie moaned softly behind him and his shoulders slumped. “I know she’s mine. She’s Freya.”

Fresh grief welled up inside him and he turned away and disappeared into the Falcon, the familiar smells of the ship engulfing him. He dropped onto the bench in the rec and smiled despite himself at the names written in permanent ink in familiar handwritings on the seat. Poe, Ben, Rey. Rey’s was hesitant and young, and written in Iyree, because her mother was teaching her the language. _I can’t do this without you, Mara._ He’d felt her death across the galaxy, her calm acceptance colliding with his frenzied desperation. He’d felt a hand brush back his hair. _“It’s alright,”_ he heard whispered in his ear _. “Don’t be mad at me, Farmboy.”_ Rey hadn’t been with her, but her assurance in the Force told him she was safe. Mara would not slip away so easily otherwise. He hadn’t seen Rey coming, but he hadn’t seen her mother coming either. Rey strode up to him and lifted her chin, cocking her head as her eyes traced his face. _I know you._ She held out the blade he’d given her mother decades before and he’d recoiled, tossing it away angrily.

Nothing came from legacy except heartache.

Mara knew this and she’d run. She knew where her path would end. Life on Coruscant made her edgy, living in the shadow of Imperial spires and a past life. _“I don’t like ghosts, Skywalker, and we both have more than our fair share.”_ But still, they found each other, in deep space and backwater planets, and homes of mutual friends. She’d been his wingman, his right hand. In between her work for Karrde and his quest to resurrect the Order they found a semblance of a life together. They trained together, searched for relics together, gotten into _quite a few_ scrapes together, and fell into bed together. When morning came, she would always lightly run her thumb across his bottom lip and murmur, “I’ll be back.” When she fell pregnant though…she ran. Luke came home after a meeting with the Senate and found his father’s lightsaber on the counter and then chased her across the galaxy. He’d already lost so much.

_Cara raised an eyebrow. “Well, well, well. Look what the tookas dragged in.”_

_“Cara. Been a long time.”_

_“Why are you here, Luke?”_

_“I need to find her.”_

_“Why do you think I would know?”_

_Luke gave her dubious look._

_“Luke, I really haven’t seen her.”_

_He doubted that very much. “You know where she would go.”_

_She purses her lips. “And you don’t?”_

_He brushed his hair back impatiently. “I’ve already tried Talon. The man either doesn’t know or won’t tell me. Mara knows he would be the first place I looked.”_

_Cara laughed at the rare burst of surliness. “Careful. Talon Karrde has been the best source of intel for the Rebellion for years.”_

_“The New Republic.”_

_She cooled. “I don’t know where Mara is.”_

_“You know who knows though.” He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. He’d come here knowing Cara wouldn’t give her up, but he knew he’d be able to get out of her if she had seen her. She had, he could tell. Who did they have in common that he knew?_

_Mirax…_

_Winter…_

_Corran…he swore on the Sarlacc if that son of a…_

_And then he knew._

_“Maz,” he breathed with certainty._

_She scowled. “Why do you think that?”_

_“One, you’re a terrible liar. Two, that little toad has a real talent for getting on my last nerve and a real love for Mara.”_

_For the first time, he pulled his hands out of his jacket holding a com link and she raised an eyebrow again. “You never got around to getting that fixed?”_

_Luke smiled thinly and flexed the metal fingers of his artificial hand. After Endor, there’d been little time to give to such triviality such as repairing synth flesh that he’d in finally just peeled the rest off. He’d grown used to it. “There’s nothing broken. I’m tired of hiding who I am. What is. Aren’t you?”_

_“What I am won’t affect other people.”_

_He met her gaze evenly. “Is that why you’re so keen to throw me off her trail? You think you’re protecting her, my baby, from me?” She didn’t answer and he didn’t press. He didn’t find it a coincidence Cara had left soon after finding out about his parentage. It had been an accident and it had stung, losing an ally, but he knew she would never tell. Still, it only served to further convince Luke and Leia that they could never be truthful about Vader or that they were siblings. “Artoo, bring the ship around,” he spoke into the comm before tucking it back into his belt. “Anything anybody is or does affects other people.” He scratched his chin. “You know the Remnant is gathering on Verlaine.”_

_Cara recoiled at the mention of the Alderaanian settlement. “The Remnant is a dream of something that doesn’t exist anymore.”_

_“Says the shock trooper in the Rebellion to restore the Republic.”_

_“Formerly.”_

_“The Remnant is what you have left.”_

_“I lost everyone.”_

_Luke bit back a retort. Everyone had lost someone. Not as completely as the Alderaanian survivors perhaps, but scale mattered little when it was personal. For him, digging a grave in the sand for the charred remains of his family next to his burned out home was still closer than any scar the Emperor has scored on his body. So much so that he hated the smell of a fire, and the smell of his flesh when Vader cut off his hand was what he remembered more than anything else that duel on Bespin. “You’re not alone,” he said simply. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”_

_Cara’s face was as impassive as ever. “I wish I could say the same. But I hope Mara never looks back.”_

Eventually, she had though. He left Cara and sat in his X-wing and reached, not for Mara, but into himself to find his center. _Let her go. Don’t drag her back._ He’d hailed Maz on Takodana and left a message.

_Just…let her know I understand. But I’m here. And I want this more than anything. – Skywalker_

He was at Leia’s apartments on Chandrila for two days when she showed up. She wasn’t showing yet, but her hand covered her belly and she’d shrugged. _“Don’t be mad at me, Farmboy.”_ He pulled her into a hug and she whispered, _“Just tell me everything will be alright.”_

He had. And it was for awhile until Ben burned down everything, and the smoke filled his nostrils. _Let her go._ His index finger traced over Rey’s wide scrawl again. _Let her go._

“I can’t,” he whispered to the ghosts on the empty ship.


End file.
